It must be sweet to be 16. Planning a Sweet 16 for my girl

[catherines_mama]

We have done way more trips then we have trip reports. We've started a few trip reports and never finished them. This trip - I plan to start and finish this one! I think starting it now will help me not get overwhelmed. And the fact that this trip is SO focused on one thing - My sweet girl turning 16 helps to keep me focused.

When things are crazy in life, I feel grounded in planning a trip. A trip to my happy place makes it all even better.

So here goes!

The WHO:
Myself - 39 yr old mama to 3 great kids. 15, 14 & 11. By the time of this trip they will be 16, 15 & 12. YUP 2 15 yos WOW. DH and I blended our families 7 yrs ago so our 2 oldest are 5 mos apart. Oldest is a girl, next is a boy. He had the hardest time understanding he was not BIGGER when they were little because he's always been BIGGER in size. They are great friends now.
DD16 - My princess. She turns 16 the DAY before our trip.
BFF16 - DD's bestie. She'll be 16 in January

** we are leaving everyone else at home **

The WHEN:
DD is a spring baby. Sometimes she's an Easter baby so she usually falls around Spring Break. We are going the 1st weekend of her Spring Break. Leaving Friday and coming back Tuesday April 7 - 11

The WHERE:
As DVC owners, we bought SSR back in Dec 2011. We've stayed DVC about 6 times and never at our HOME resort. This time.. we are. Not because we couldn't move last week at 7 mos. But because DD figured it might be nice. It was her choice and I'd have made anything work, but she was happy to stay with it. The girls LOVE to shop and LOVE spas so it would work out nicely.

The HOW:
We live in NC and used to live in FL so we've always driven to WDW. Even if DH and I take a no-kids trip we drive BUT the girls want to fly. I have plenty of miles thanks to work travel SO... Fly it is. I booked DD and my tix and BFF dad booked hers on his reward miles. since we live in a coastal town we have 1 stop along the way to MCO, but it wont make for a long day. I'm really excited about this since it'll be our 1st time using DME.

There will be a lot of planning for this one. Being her birthday AND her Sweet 16, I have a lot I want to do for DD.
* Special shirts for at least 1 day
* Sashes
* Crystal Palace Breakfast (DD fave)
* Special Bday Dinner at a nice restaurant where we can dress fancy
* Cake delivery to this dinner
* Spa treatment
(otherwise, we are going to TRY to relax. Pick the parks, have FP+, but not stress TOO much)

 

[catherines_mama]

FUN Update. I had gotten DD and I plane tickets using reward tickets. I sent the details to BFF parents and they reserved her flight.

Her flight is the only thing I am not paying for. Otherwise the entire trip is on me. I saw them last night at the girls' volleyball game and they said - THEY GOT THE TICKETS!

They had to link her ticket to mine even though she's 16 they wanted to ensure she was with an adult (the airline). Her seat is as near me on all flights as possible. I'll give the 2 girls the 2 seats together and I'll sit in the random seat. I just want to be able to see them if possible.

It's getting real!

 

[catherines_mama]

A quick peek at US.

The girls. So sweet and so cute! When we moved here in 5th grade BFF was DD's 1st friend and they've been bestfriends since.

These are them a bit young, but they've grown up just as beautiful!

And then there is me. I'm in the avatar with DD11. So you know the crew traveling. At home I leave DD11, DS14 and DH all alone. They'll survive. In Sept DH and DS14 who will soon be DS15 and by then be DS16 will be going to a big city to celebrate his Sweet 16 and see a Big City Baseball game. Just waiting for the 2017 schedule to come out. No big parties. No big cars (we have an OLD jeep they all 3 get to pass around), just fun experiences.

 

[catherines_mama]

Headache today... MDE is annoying me!
DH and I had a trip planned for OCT 2016. We unfortunately had to cancel it but it worked out. I used same pts to book resort, same air to book plane, same tix for DD and I so really, it broke my heart but it worked out too.

Well, our MDE for the resort had DH and I linked. When I adjusted it, it added DD but kept DH and it won't add BFF (I added her to our friends list and she is listed on DVC). DVC member services told me MDE would pick her up... it hasn't.

So on hold with MDE for 20+min so far to fix it. At 1st as soon as I put my res# in they transferred me to DVC. NOPE. Been there, done that. Lets try again. Need BFF so I can link her ticket and do bands and FP+

 

[catherines_mama]

Our plans (for now).

The exact times aren't posted yet for our trip. They should be in the next week but looking at the week previous park hours I have an idea of our plans.

Friday - FLY IN. We don't have the earliest flight hoping to get DD an early appointment to get her driving test to get her license. She failed her Permit test her 1st time on her bday so she cannot get her license to the next day (the day we fly out)

Arrive in the afternoon and take DME for the FIRST EVER TIME! Oh that is so exciting to say. We've never done it and it just makes it exciting to do something for the first time.

Once we arrive at Saratoga Springs (another first). We'll get settled in and unpacked.. we are unpackers. and head over to Disney Springs.
I'm traveling with 16 year olds now.. time to SHOP! We'll head over to shop and eat at Disney Springs. Our last trip it was under renovation, and we're really excited to see it. Lots we want to see, Lots we want to eat. NO idea where we'll end up!

Saturday - Magic Kingdom / Open to Close kind of day! A good thing about Friday being a quiet shop and eat day. We can go to bed early and get up for an early ADR to Crystal Palace - DD choice. then spend the day in MK doing whatever the girls want to do.

Not sure if we will end the night with Wishes! or not.... see later this weekend.

Sunday - Animal Kingdom. We love Animal Kingdom. The girls love the rides so we'll spend the 1st part of the day here and have fun until lunchtime. Then we'll go back to the hotel and relax, swim and get fancy. The girls want some spa time. We'll fit this in here. Tonight is DDs special bday dinner. I'll try to get Narcosse Dinner Reservations. I want to time it so we can walk out and see Wishes! after dinner.

DH and I ate here for an anniversary dinner and it was a very wonderful dinner. Looking at menus I know it will be one of DD and DD BFF favorite.

Monday - Need to fit in 2 more favorites. Starting the morning at Hollywood Studios, fitting in everything we can and finishing the day at Epcot - doing the rest of the fun there. MOMMY needs to visit Epcot at least once to have a drink in France (YUMM)

Tuesday We'll get up. Relax. Have breakfast and sadly leave. It'll be another trip on DME and flight home. The girls wanted to have SOME TIME (come on mom) with their friends over Spring Break and they know I could only do SO MUCH Disney on our budget. Love my girls.

 

[catherines_mama]

I hope everyone is okay where they are today. My home state of FL is getting a nasty visit from Matthew today. He'll be visiting us this weekend. That has me a bit nervous. Not really about our house. As a Cat 1 or 2 I think we'll be fine.

But my ADR day is Sunday AND if we are without power or connectivity I may not be able to make the ADRs. EEK! That is scary!

In the sense that everything works out for a reason... DH and I trip was to begin TODAY. If we hadn't canceled we might have been canceled for weather anyway. The only thing we couldn't recoup were our Blue Man Group tix and .. show was canceled so tix refunded. All worked out!

 

[catherines_mama]

Nervous weekend. Sunday morning was our 180 day mark. Saturday Hurricane Matthew came ashore in SC. We live in the SE corner of NC. Early evening Saturday Matthew's eye passed just East of us. We are about 5 min from the beach in NC. As the backside of the storm was upon us the weather was MUCH worse then it was all day Saturday. I was worried about power, connectivity etc as I went to sleep Saturday night. We planned to just SLEEP and not worry - what could we do really. In truth, we were blessed to be so close to the eye. We had wind but little rain and the rain really did a lot of damage to the inland counties around us.

I woke up Sunday and thankfully we had minimal damage from the wind and still had power. Hubby and I went to do some cleanup and made the kids breakfast. Then Hubby left to head back to work (he works 2 hrs away right now for another 2 mos). He knew inland had it worse and the drive make take awhile.

I was getting ready to head to the grocery store - had water and bread and food to cook on the camp grill but not food for a school week when OMG - IT'S SUNDAY! ADR DAY!

I ran to the computer and sat down:

Couldn't get Crystal Palace before opening the day I wanted it
COULD get it for the time I wanted the next day - SCORE - just reorganized our days

Then I booked Narcossee for another night for her special Sweet 16 Dinner, and I think that works best. That will be our 1st FULL DAY and what better way to end it then with a beautiful dinner and WISHES from GF.

So those 2 ADR were done. Errands than ran, laundry complete. then to church. We rescheduled AM services for PM since the storm had come through. I saw my fave WDW travel agent who asked me "Did you get them"? and I laughed "I ALMOST FORGOT". love her.

So, close call!

Next - need to get the final ticket - for DBFF then plan our FP+ for the trip.